Marketing

Having a strong social media presence is something that brands in the NOW Gen are looking for. Marketer are looking to create connections with their customers, and social media has become the perfect channel. In today’s episode we will talk about the positive results that come from organic connection with customers, specifically through social media. If you want to learn about a more human approach to this customer engagement get your notepad, because today’s episode is full of incredible insights from a marketing star. Our guest, Suzanne Lindbergh, Global Head Social Brand Strategy, Social Media and Content, and Influencer/Creator Marketing at UBER, shares her best practices and motivates marketers to start now.

Guest

Suzanne Lindbergh

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

KEY POINTS:

• From being an Uber user to actually working for Uber.
• Social Media as a two-way street for marketing strategies.
• Crafting customer-centered strategies to improve engagement.
• Marketing should always be on, as customers are always on the lookout for more.
• Human connection is key to foster customer loyalty.
• Social Media should not always look like a polished marketing campaign.

RELEVANT QUOTES:

“We have extensive Uber support handles across Twitter and across Instagram and across LinkedIn, where if you’re having a problem, maybe a food order is taking a little bit longer than you feel it should, you can get some answers and information via Uber support on social media.”

“It’s one of the few pieces of marketing that allows you to actually establish a two-way conversation every single day, you know, 24/7, you know, throughout the year globally, to find out what customers are thinking and saying to engage with them, to have a little bit of fun with them, a little bit of banter with them.”

“Certainly, we use the handles to inform, about what we’re working on. Maybe there’s a new comms initiative, a new product feature, and a new social impact initiative that we’re engaging in. So we use the handles and all the, that we, on a daily basis, have to let people know what we’re up to.”

“But we also use our social media channels just to establish a really human relationship with our customers. And what I often say is, I say, social media can often be the welcome mat for customers.”

“I think that people want to be heard, right? I just think, in general, it’s a very core psychological, need that people have to be heard. And, we get lots of really, so on the support side, we’re solving problems. We’re quite literally solving problems and people are very appreciative.”

“So our support function is so important. And then on the this side of things where it’s conversation and engagement and banter, I think, there’s an affiliation that I think people want to have with the brands that they love.”

“I think people just really like to know that there are human beings on the other side of, of the Twitter page or the, the software. there are folks that wanna make sure that their experience is a good one, with all the best intents and all the best hope for, for great outcomes. And there’s a little bit of a magic that, that I think that, great brands bring to their customers, right? Is a little bit of a magic in the product itself, but sort of a magic in how the brand communicates with you as well.”

“We’ve had great success in really increasing engagement with customers. I think we did a, after 2022, I think we did a year up nearly 600% in engagement year over year, which just tells me that what we’re doing is working really nicely. So we’re increasing in engagement, increasing in brand sentiment, and hopefully, making people feel like, they’re appreciated as customers of the brand.”

“People want, like I said earlier, people want to see a human side to the brand. People want to, break that fourth wall a little bit, and they want to, feel like they’re engaging with other human beings. It’s a very, like I mentioned earlier, it’s a very, very basic psychological need for, for most folks. and UGC really helps, to engage with communities.”

“It really helps when we highlight some user-generated content. people are so appreciative when we do that. They, they love that we’re highlighting people who’ve had a great experience with the brand or we’re just, we, we highlight people who, have interesting and compelling things to say about Uber or say about the brand.”

“TikTok has basically informed all social media channels that you better not show up too polished, and you better not show up with ads, you know, and very highly polished marketing content. Yeah. Social media has changed dramatically. You better show up to every channel on social media with content that feels like it’s kind of scrappy, that it was shot on an iPhone.”

“It should not feel like it’s a polished marketing campaign every time you turn to social media.”

“We make room for, for very nicely done campaign assets on our social media, but they must be interwoven with UGC content, content that’s made easily and in the moment on an iPhone content that leans into culture and leans into trends that we’re seeing on social media in the moment.”

“UGC is a big part of what we do, and we shine a light on a lot of folks. and there are positive experiences with our product and with the app, and then we highlight those on our social media as for which channels we think work the best.”

“So that’s what we heavily leaned into during the Super Bowl just last week to get, we did a big Uber one campaign at the Super Bowl to get Uber one trending and to engage with other brands and engage with customers who really liked our Super Bowl ad that in the moment by far, is Twitter.”

“TikTok has become really like an, an uber lifestyle play for us. It has to be very short form content, short video, very relatable. And we have chosen attacked of using creators and our own in-house creative team, who sits a, a a gentleman who sits on my team to create fun, entertaining, it’s an entertainment platform, TikTok, fun, entertaining videos that sort of encompass the uber lifestyle and, from food culture to transportation culture, all the funny and silly little things that we do, when we’re ordering food or, and or eating.”

“Our teams are innovating all the time. We have a, an incredibly robust engineering team, an incredible product marketing team. I feel like every week we are adding a feature or doing something that just makes everybody’s lives easier.”

“So between now and the next couple months, you’re gonna see a redesigned app, that’s gonna just make things a lot easier for folks to navigate the app. Okay. And the tiles in the app, you’re gonna see some other incredible features that we’ll be talking about, and always with the goal to listen to customers, hear what they’re saying, right.”

“From an engineering standpoint, we’ve come up with unique and new and incredible ways to make people’s lives easier in the app and to make, you know, the app itself easier to use, but it’s just also easier to get a car, easier to get a delivery, more products.”

“I think it’s something that’s been sorting, so kind of bubbling up over the last couple of years, but marketing has changed pretty dramatically. And if companies are not employing sort of an always on marketing strategy, I think they’re kind of making a big mistake.”

“There are still definitely big campaigns, but in between each big campaign, there is a constant effort to keep in touch with the customer, both future customers and current customers through CRM tactics, through social media, through smaller promotional efforts like in performance marketing that has a very direct call to action in the moment.”

“Marketing has become an always on effort. Every different group within the company has to play its role. the comms team plays its role, social media in concert with that comms team plays an important role.”

“It’s like this cross-functional effort that is constantly kind of morphing, changing based on the day, but has to be a really important cross-functional effort so that we are engaging and talking with the customers every single day.”

“You wanna be talking with your customers both to hear what they’re having to say, but also sharing with them how you’re gonna make their lives better and solve problems for them every single day.”

“That’s how you can start the conversation with people and you’ll start to grow followers and start to, to increase your engagement. And as you’re building, the company and sort of the, the larger marketing strategy, you’ll have already established yourselves with some customers and be engaging with them.”

“I always tell people, like, don’t, don’t sit around and fret about, oh, how we, how can we get started? We don’t have resources. It takes one person to get started. It quite literally takes one person to get started, just get started and start doing it now. and, it will, it will pay back dividends in the future.”

“Well, you can’t create momentum if you’re just coming out in sporadic spurts of here and then nothing for a while, and then here.”

“I mean, that’s really ultimately what customers, and companies are trying to, companies trying to create a relationship with their customer, a trusted relationship. and out of that relationship is hopefully a, a, you know, it’s, it’s both a personal relationship that ultimately is at times a business relationship as well.”

“That’s a, you know, and companies just need to, you, you almost need to break it down and think of things just on a much more simple human perspective. Just behave like a human. The best brands just behave like humans.”